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The Latin American Theatre of Exile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Marina Pianca
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Extract

It is not surprising that the ancient republics allowed the condemned to escape death through flight. Exile did not seem to them a softer sentence than death. Roman jurisprudence also called it capital punishment.

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Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Summer 1989 , pp. 174 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1989

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References

Notes

1. In La Ciudad Letrada. Foustel de Coulanges. Quoted by Raffo, Julio C. in Meditatión del Exilio. Editorial América, Nueva, Buenos Aires, 1985.Google Scholar As we approach the twenty-first century, ancient practices have not subsided, in fact, they appear to be gaining rapidly on our more modern concepts of rationality and justice. The following examples will suffice: The Latin American League of Families of Disappeared Persons revealed that hundreds of thousands are still unaccounted for throughout the subcontinent. Amnesty International has published findings that indicate that torture is an accepted practice in ninety-eight countries. In Colombia, 51% of all deaths among persons 15 years of age or older are murders traceable, in many cases, to political motives. The atrocities committed during the ‘dirty war’ in Argentina (1976–1983)Google Scholar exposed in the recent – and unresolved – trial of the military regime in power at the time, brought new meaning to the words systematic torture, persecution and genocide.

2. Molloy, Silvia, La diffusion de la littérature hispano-américaine en France au XXe siècle, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1972.Google Scholar Also, see Obregon, Osvaldo's four volume doctoral dissertation on Latin American Theatre in France, Université de Franche-Comté, 1987.Google Scholar

3. On this subject, see Testimonios de Teatro Latinoamericano (Argentina, Chile, Perú, Nicaragua y Uruguay) by Pianca, Marina. Editorial Origenes, Madrid, 1989.Google Scholar

4. Some who had worked in theatre projects tied to international organizations such as FAO had the opportunity to continue their work in the literacy campaigns of Mozambique. Many shared their expertise in Nicaragua in the post-revolutionary literacy campaigns and in the development of a broad-based theatre movement.

5. Let us just think of the many ways in which this isolation becomes part of daily life: prisons, concentration camps, censorship, burning of books, silence (the fear of speaking, the fear of reading, the fear of hearing, the fear of seeing), distrust, no apparent collective memory of the past, early curfews which barricade individuals within their homes, death-squad lists of condemned persons (which not only disrupt the lives of those directly targeted but also that of others who fear the consequences of the proximity to those individuals), lists of those who cannot return to the country, no freedom of assembly, no habeas corpus, no laws, no justice, and an ever present fear.

6. Maria de la Luz Hurtado offers an excellent study of this reality in Chile in her article ‘El teatro chileno durante el régimen militar’ in Chile Vive, (Ministry of Culture, Madrid, Spain, 1987).Google Scholar ‘Chile Vive’ was a major international event staged in Madrid in 1987. It showed the growth and continuity of all cultural forms in spite of Pinochet's stronghold. Chile Vive is a compilation of writings on all facets of Chilean cultural life by those who travelled abroad to report that ‘Chile lives’.

7. For additional information refer to ‘Documentatión Teatral’ published by Eduardo Guerrero and Jorge Díaz in Madrid, Spain, since 1984. It is a monthly bulletin of activities of the Chilean theatre of exile throughout Latin America and the world.

8. Claudia Kaiser-Lenoir, in her interview with Norman Brisky, refers to this reality in the United States. ‘Entretien avec Norman Brisky’, Caravelle, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, France, Volume 40, 1983, pp. 49–56.Google Scholar

9. For additional information refer to articles by Obregón, Osvaldo, Díaz, Jorge, Cáceres, Susan, Clunes, Amaya and Silva, Jaime in Diógenes; Anuario Crítico del Teatro Latinoamericano (1985), Volume I, edited by Pianca, Marina, Girol/Atint, Ottawa, Canada.Google Scholar These articles deal with the theatre of exile in Canada, France and Spain. Several testimonies on this subject also appear in Testimonies de Teatro Latinoamericano.

10. ‘Nuestra America’ is the title of an essay by Cuba's José Martí, which proposes an alternative project that would free Latin America from historical realities. Briefly outlined his argument is as follows: Internal strife and external interference have been the historical motors of Latin American history. Since independence from Spanish rule, divergent prospects for the future of the newly created nations have kindled bitter battles in an ongoing war. Antagonistic and irreconcilable views converged towards two distinct poles. One foresaw a Latin American progress born of the internalization of foreign models: Europe and the United States. Others, more willing to define progress within the specificity of their own process, defended the dignity of their own cultures, of their own uncharted destiny. As a consequence of this bipolarity, exile and death have been tightly woven into the fabric of Latin American history. New nations were born free of Spanish rule in the early nineteenth century only to find that once again for many exile from the newly acquired homeland was the only option to execution. The birth of national literatures, in many cases, found their more eloquent artists writing abroad, already unable to live in the land they were struggling to form.

In 1891, Jose Martí (a Cuban national exiled in the United States for many years), published his essay ‘Nuestra América’ (‘Our America’) which succinctly establishes a prospective image of the subcontinent as a viable historical project. It was to have a profound impact on the defence and development of a Latin American identity and culture. The year before, while in Washington, Marti had had a strong presentiment upon viewing an enormous eagle clutching the flags of all the American Republics within its claws. In his essay, he insists on the need for the new nations from the Rio Bravo to the South to hear their own voices as ‘hombres nuevos americanos’ (new American men) and to defend their independence from their formidable neighbour to the north. Martí did not live to see his presentiment take form in the Cuba he so struggled to free from Spanish rule. He died in battle before 1898 when Cuba and Puerto Rico were finally freed only to become colonies of the United States. But Martí's voice has been insistently heard. It is now a collective voice that echoes throughout the continent as the expression of a people who believe in the integration of a united Latin America free from the determinant factors that have disfigured its history to date.

11. Díaz, Jorge, ‘Teatro chileno en el exilio’ Diógenes: Anuario Crítico del Teatro Latinoamericano (1986), edited by Pianca, Marina. Volume II, 1987, Ottawa, Canada, p. 102.Google Scholar Translated from the original Spanish by the author.

12. Ibidem, p. 101.

13. This was painfully obvious during the theatre session of the ‘Chile Vive’ event in Madrid – jointly organized by Chilean opposition leaders and Spanish officials. As ‘teatristas’ residing in Chile admirably described the life and strength of their opposition theatre (which audiences could see in the evenings), many exiles openly questioned their exclusion from that account. In fact, Chilean exiles were not invited to participate. Even though this may have a political explanation, it was humanly devastating for those in exile, who were once again confronted with isolation and marginality.

14. The complex process of reinsertion is yet another dimension of exile which we can only mention in passing. It must be remembered that there was no consolidated opposition in exile beyond solidarity with the homeland. Political differences which existed before the exodus continued and in some cases deepened abroad. This pattern did not disappear when the return became possible. An ongoing dialogue among those who stayed, those who left, and those who did not reach an agreement – in any circumstance – regarding the political alternatives for the future, could become the new ground for political growth and conciliation.

15. For a complete account of this experience refer to Dorfman, Ariel's ‘Teatro en los campos de concentración chílenos. Conversación con Oscar Castro del Aleph’, Conjunto (Havana), No. 37, 1978, pp. 2–40.Google Scholar

16. In Testimomos de Teatro men and women who have been imprisoned in the Southern Cone speak about the ways in which they produced theatre in that context. Some, during more repressive times, simply created individual characters that, whenever possible, commented often humorously, on events in the prisons or camps as a way of exorcizing fears and anxieties. When the structure of the barracks allowed it, after the main door that led to their cells was shut, a prisoner watched for guards as others performed. Rehearsals, the making of props and costumes, were undertaken openly or clandestinely, at different times. Whatever was allowed or forbidden was dialectically tied to events ‘on the outside’, therefore, the climate ‘inside’ varied, and so did the fate of the prisoners. Full productions were also possible given this variable nature of acquired freedoms within the prisons and concentration camps of the Southern Cone. Some prisoners speak of how that ‘freedom’ was also used as punishment: one man spent six months building a galleon for his son; when he finished, the guards came in and destroyed it. This was not an uncommon practice. Many plays, short stories and poems were lost in this way. The stubborn resourcefulness of these men and women is often inspiring. Poems were transmitted in morse code through walls, plays written on cigarette papers smuggled out of prison in the hems of shirts, sculptures made from a bone found in the soup, created with the help of a sewing needle.

17. Dorfman, , p. 22.Google Scholar

18. Céspedes, Sergio Lidid. ‘Teatro en los campos de concentración’, Conjunto No. 38, 1978Google Scholar, La Habana, , Cuba, p. 70.Google Scholar

19. ‘Testimonio de Oscar Castro’ in Testimonios de Teatro Latinoamericano.

20. Ibidem. This play has one central powerful image: a small suitcase which the exile Mateluna carries with him wherever he goes. It is a versatile prop. When Mateluna's friends insistently ask that he open the suitcase, his only answer is ‘no, I'll be returning home soon’, but years go by and on the seventh year, Mateluna opens his suitcase, in a final gesture that brought tears to many exiles in the audience. Mateluna was in Paris to stay, with no end in sight for his life of exile.

21. Ruben Yañez begins his article ‘El Galpón a la hoguera’ with these words from Brecht. It appeared in Cambio, Mexico, 04–05 1977, p. 78.Google Scholar